


You're My Dream, We're Transcendent

by OwenToDawn



Series: 15 Day Lyric Challenge 2020 [14]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Falling In Love, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Self-Esteem Issues, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwenToDawn/pseuds/OwenToDawn
Summary: Manuela knows of many types of love
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Manuela Casagranda
Series: 15 Day Lyric Challenge 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882966
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	You're My Dream, We're Transcendent

**Author's Note:**

> Today's fic is inspired by the lyric: 
> 
> “I want to erase the day you lost me/As our dreams transcend my reality” from Transcend by BewhY feat C Jamm
> 
> This song is actually just a pretty gay song about two dudes and how they feel about each other, but I decided to take this a more introspective route of Manuela as she moves through her life and the pieces of herself she almost loses as she tries to find love
> 
> Title from the same song
> 
> Comments are loved

Manuela knows love – intimately. When one spends their whole life chasing it from the moment they comprehend the feeling, they know it better than anyone else.

She chases it onto the stage, wrapping herself in the image of characters people laughed and cried for, cloaking herself in the praise that comes from people who don’t know better. Or perhaps they do, but like her, they’re willing to lose themselves in the lie. With sponsors for the Mittelfrank Opera Company, it becomes a delicate balance to walk. A charming wink, a lingering hug, a carefully timed exhale as she pulls away – all tools to keep nobles strung along so they’ll be willing to contribute more and more money. It’s fake, sure, but she soaks it all in and lets it fill her heart. But filling a bottomless pot never works, and by the time the younger girls start entering the company, she knows she has to leave before she’s tossed out.

“You’ll never find a husband in theater anyways,” one of the crew tells her during her farewell party.

-.-

So she chases a different kind of love. She practices faith magic and crafts a new image. This one doesn’t fit as easily. Perhaps she’s grown tired of acting. She can dote on an injured patient just fine, but her patience runs thin with her coworkers and her boss, so when she gets an offer from Garreg Mach to teach, she takes it. Being a loving and sweet nurse who wins the affection of patients is nice in theory, but she’s always known when to turn down a role that didn’t fit.

“No one wants a woman who raises her voice,” the head nurse tells her.

“No one ever complained about my voice before,” Manuela snaps back.

She does not receive a farewell party when she leaves.

-.-

Rhea gives her the space to do as she pleases, and while she still butts heads with the teachers she finds…something. It’s not love. It’s not what she wants. But the smiles from students pleased at their hard work paying off and the gifts they give her on holidays feel more genuine then those showered on her my nobles. The students are still the children of nobles, too young to have been corrupted by the power of their wealth. That comes later.

It’s not quite enough though. It’s still a lie. In a place of authority as she is, she has a role to play, and while it fits better than that of a nurse, she still finds herself craving love. Companionship. She pursues it with a single-minded focus and fails again and again. She analyzes where she went wrong, tries changing her tactics, but every time she lets a man see something honest out of her, they flee. Perhaps her insides are just as corrupt as the nobles she hated.

“You know, if you weren’t so quick to anger, someone might think the warmth you treat some with is genuine,” Hanneman says as she picks up her papers from off the floor where she’d thrown them off her desk when they’d screamed at each other.

“It’s all genuine, Hanneman,” she says.

Hanneman rolls his eyes and Manuela curses at herself for giving the man a hint of honesty.

-.-

When Dorothea enrolls, and even worse tells her that Manuela is the reason she did so, Manuela feels as though the rug has been pulled out from underneath her. Yet another role she must play, one she takes far more seriously. If Dorothea wishes to emulate her, it’s all the more important for her to keep the things men and society detest away and out of sight. She sees herself in the way Dorothea flits among the nobleman, making no secret of her desire for a husband. She watches as Dorothea flips through masks between conversations with her classmates and tries to ignore the sick feeling of dread it leaves her with. If even Dorothea, a woman far more beautiful and lovely than her, finds herself trapped seeking approval through lies, what hope could she possibly have?

“Really, I want to be just like you,” Dorothea says as they sit on a bench together in the greenhouse as the Millennium Festival continues inside. “I know you think that you aren’t worth that sort of thing, but I…I wish I could be as honest as you one day.”

“I’m not honest with anyone,” Manuela says with a laugh so bitter she can taste it on her tongue.

“That’s not true,” Dorothea says. “You’re a rose that never pretended she doesn’t have thorns.”

"I’ve lied to many men, Dorothea. I cover up my flaws all the time,” Manuela says. “How else could I get a man to take me on even one date?”

Dorothea just shakes her head. “I’m not talking about being honest with men. You’re honest with me – at least you have been lately.”

She leaves before Manuela can think of a response.

-.-

And then the war happens.

-.-

In war time, there is no energy for masks. Manuela snaps and barks orders, heals her former students turned soldiers, and sheds tears and screams and rages when she loses them to death anyways. She wants to hate Edelgard, but she can’t begrudge her for warning to tear the whole system down and expose its rotten core. So she stays, and so too does Dorothea. She watches as Dorothea’s soft smiles harden and her eyes grow cold with each battle, but she can’t even grieve the loss of it. Not when she feels as though her own heart is crumbling to dust.

“I’m not good at faith magic,” Dorothea tells her one night as she helps Manuela stumbles to her room from the infirmary. “But you need to teach me.”

“Stop trying to be me, I can’t-“

“I’m not trying to be you, I’m trying to help you,” Dorothea says, lowering Manuela onto her bed before kneeling to start unlacing her boots for her. “Please…let me do this.”

She sets Manuela’s boots aside and presses her forehead to Manuela’s knees, shoulders shaking as she begins to cry. As much as it hurts to see, she feels relieved. Underneath the hard exterior, Dorothea is still the warm and emotional woman she always has been. Perhaps there’s hope for the both of them if even a war can’t entirely snuff out their emotions. She slides off her bed and wraps her arms around Dorothea and for just one night, she lets herself weep too, for the both of them, and for everyone they’ve lost.

-.-

After that night, something shifts. The war and all its burdens still weigh on her, but now she knows what Dorothea meant all those years ago. With Dorothea, she’s never fully been able to have a mask in place. Perhaps it was because they were so similar, but Dorothea always saw right through it. There’s never been any hiding from her. She thinks about it when they spend evenings together in quiet companionship with tea or reading or cards, searching out a slice of peace with one another. She realizes that Dorothea too, has never hid anything from her either. Around one another, they can let their beauty and ugliness both show without fear.

“Wouldn’t it be nice, if after everything, we could spend all our nights like this?” Dorothea asks, her voice drowsy and muffled where she has her lips pressed to Manuela’s neck.

Manuela shifts on the sofa so she can turn the page of her book before resting her arm around Dorothea’s shoulders again. “It really would be.”

-.-

And then, somehow, they win.

-.-

Manuela isn’t sure what she’s chasing anymore but returning to rebuild the Mittelfrank Opera Company with Dorothea once Edelgard is in power feels more like arriving than it does chasing. It doesn’t feel like it did back then, not with Dorothea at her side. Neither have any interest in pretending to be something they aren’t when they aren’t on stage, and with Edelgard’s approval and financial backing, they don’t need to be.

“Shall we buy a home together?” Dorothea asks as they finish counting the money from the first quarter’s run of shows in their shared office. “I don’t much like the idea of living alone.”

“Neither do I,” Manuela says. “We’ve been together this long after all.”

Dorothea smiles and when she looks at Manuela across the table, something unfamiliar, something she hasn’t felt in over a decade flutters in her stomach. A blush rises up into her face, the heat making her shift. Her leg bumps Dorothea’s under the table but Dorothea doesn’t pull away, only hooking her ankle around Manuela’s before turning back to her counting and filing.

-.-

It isn’t until four years later, when they’re both able to retire before Dorothea hits thirty, that Manuela realizes what’s happened. Years of running the opera house, performing on stage together, attending parties of high society, all things she became skilled at and enjoyed in her pursuit of love, it all pales in comparison to the joy she feels when she returns home with her arm linked with Dorothea’s.

They have separate rooms in their modest townhome in the heart of Enbarr, but most nights find them falling asleep in one another’s beds as they wind down for the night with the customary tea and reading. The loneliness that chased her through her younger years and early middle-age has been erased by Dorothea’s presence. As they step into their home, their last show of their careers behind them, Manuela realizes what it is that fills her chest whenever Dorothea holds her or looks her way.

“Love…”

Dorothea pauses as she unbuttons her overcoat. “I’m sorry?”

“Love, Dorothea, it’s love,” Manuela says, reaching forward and seizing both of Dorothea’s hands in her own. “You love me.”

"Of course,” Dorothea says, her eyes soft the way they only ever are when she looks at her. “I’ve been waiting for you to realize…”

Manuela lets out a breathless laugh and surges forward, pressing their lips together with all the giddy happiness of a young girl experiencing her first love. She feels Dorothea smile against her lips and sinks into her warm embrace. 


End file.
